Wrong Turn 6: The Sharps
by Johnnie Zombie
Summary: A group of Bluefield State University students head to the Greenbrier backcountry for a weekend of extreme sports, unaware that nearby, the last surviving Mountain Man clan seeks to perpetuate their twisted bloodline.
1. Prologue

_Fairlake, West Virginia _

_August 14th, 2004_

"I'd die before I let you take me out on a date," Dylan Ray smiled up at Deputy Mike, who was sitting on the corner of her desk.

"Ain't that a bit harsh, Miss Ray?" Mike tried his best to look wounded but Dylan wasn't biting.

"I know that I'm new here, but you'll learn that I'm a proud woman, deputy. I'd die before I let a man take that pride away from me, which is precisely what would happen if I showed you the color of my underwear."

"It's pink, ain't it? You don't even have to tell me, I already know." Mike tipped his hat and slid off the wooden surface, sipping at his tall coffee as he strode across the Sheriff's Station. Dylan was about to get back to her communication log when she noticed Mike's abrupt stop. He stared agape outside the window. Dylan, alarmed by Mike's reaction, got up to see what could have possibly shut Michael D. Wade up.

Chris Flynn and Jessie Burlingame drove into the small town in their stolen, blood-splattered tow truck. Main Street took them directly to the Sheriff Station.

Jessie hopped out of the passenger side and went around the old truck to Chris and helped him down. His calf was still bleeding from the shotgun blast he took at the hillbillies' car graveyard. Before the shellshocked, ragged pair made it to the door of the police station, two officers came out, immediately taking their arms and leading them inside.

Jessie looked at the woman who assisted her, read her nametag as A. LANE. The stocky male cop that acted as Chris' crutch was M. WADE. Inside the station, a pot-bellied sheriff and a young blond were at a water cooler, startled expressions on their faces.

Jessie had the sudden, insane urge to laugh out loud.

_These fuckers don't know the first thing about being 'startled.'_

Dylan saw the man first. Tall, dark and covered in blood, his severe features seemed accentuated by the crimson sheen on his face. He looked at her with angry blue eyes. Ally came in with a beautiful brunette, dressed in a filthy tank top and mud-splattered jeans. Her doe eyes were wide and swimming with shock, but she managed to follow Lane's instructions well enough.

"Jesus Mary," Sheriff Carver exclaimed as he looked at the two. "What the hell happened?"

"We were attacked in the woods," Chris grunted as he took the first chair he could. He elevated his right leg and set it on Lane's desk. Gingerly pulling up the crusty hem of his pantleg, Dylan saw that his calf was wrapped tightly by a belt, and the flesh beneath it looked purple and raw. Jessie grabbed Chris' shoulder.

"They killed my friends," she said, her large brown eyes distant. "There were four of them."

"And they got a cop too," Chris added, peeling away the soaked gauze from the meat of his raw calf. "Someone who heard our radio call from the watchtower."

"That was you?" Dylan asked, heading over to the communications array. "We picked up that message last night and sent out Hicks to investigate. He hasn't reported back in yet, Sheriff."

"Ally, take their statements." Carver had fire in his eyes and Deputy Lane moved quickly, grabbing a notepad from her breast pocket. "I want to know every detail about what they saw up there." Carver turned to the radio console. "Mike, call an ambulance, will ya? Dylan, give Solomon a call. We need him to find Hicks."

"Yes, Sheriff." Dylan Ray said as she picked up the landline.

"Oh, and Dylan, ring your father too. He knows those woods better'n anybody."

"Yes, Sheriff." Dylan's hands were trembling as she made the call to Solomon's patroller.

_Please God, don't let it be the Mountain Men._


	2. Chapter 1

_Greenbrier Backcountry, __West Virginia _

_October 17th, 2013_

Momma Gobble was up on the cutting table, her massive bulk sweating and sliding as she writhed in pain. Her filthy skirts were hiked up, exposing her swollen sex. Two Skin, Momma's husband and brother, was kneeling before her, making agitated snarls and fearful hoots.

Snake Mouth was laying in his bed, woken by his mother-aunt's throaty howls. He turned away from the rotted cabin wall and watched them. Momma Gobble had gotten fatter again, but Snake Mouth wasn't sure if it was because she was with child or if it was because of the two hitchikers they ate last week. Her considerable bulk had distended, red and angry looking, and she had been convulsing on the table for two days now. Two Skin watched his sister-wife's birth canal attentively, so Snake Mouth assumed their family was going to grow by one today.

Hopefully this one kept.

A great gout of blood shot from between Momma Gobble's legs, glazing Two Skin's twisted face with red. Momma's thick hands were gripping the wooden table so hard that the elm began to warp and crack. Another soul-deep scream and the hillwoman was excreting more blood, and piss now too. Two Skin absent-mindedly licked the fluids from his lips. Snake Mouth leaned forward in his divan and saw Momma's sex split open, a gray dome breaching the stretched labia. Two Skin jumped in place, hollering in anticipation as his new nephew, his seventh son, slid wetly into the world. Cradling his muscled arms, Two Skin caught the newborn before it smacked to the earthen floor of the lodge.

Snake Mouth jumped out of bed and approached the silent baby. Momma Gobble was quiet too, her shuddering breath coming slowly now. Snake Mouth leaned forward into his father's arms and opened his mouth, revealing two sharpened fangs and a bisected tongue. The two fleshy, prehensile halves of the young man's tongue curled and flexed over the rubbery flesh of his brother, lapping at the sheath of amniotic fluid. The child did not stir or respond to Snake Mouth's ministrations.

Snake Mouth looked up at his father, saw Two Skin's eyes harden. He unceremoniously dropped the stillborn. It fell in a boneless tangle of truncated limbs and umbilical cord. Momma Gobble groaned. Of all the children Two Skin and Gobble had, Snake Mouth was the only one who survived longer than a few years, the others dying during birth or of failing organs in their infancy. They had gotten used to the disappointment, but there were so few Mountain Men left that Momma and Two Skin had to keep trying.

Momma squirmed on her back, like an overturned pink tortoise, and Snake Mouth helped her sit up. She looked at her husband with her fat face, brown eyes distant with fatigue and pain. She lazily pulled at Two Skin's drawstrings, loosening his mud-caked trousers. Half-naked, Two Skin was pulled onto his kin with a grunt of impatience. Resigned, Two Skin started to rock back and forth on his heels, straining to fill his mate.

Snake Mouth picked up his dead brother and brought him to the wash basin, next to a set of cutting implements and softly molding vegetables.

There was no use in throwing away good meat, even when it was bad meat.


	3. Chapter 2

"This will absolutely _murder _you, bro." Kevin Lake said as he struggled through pulling on the joint, passing it to Juan, and driving the Volkswagon simultaneously. Juan Cartero took the proferred cigarette and puffed at it critically.

"You right homes," Juan said, licking the sticky residue on his lips. "It tastes like murder."

"That's what I'm _sayin'_," Kevin dragged his finger across his throat and smiled big. Juan grinned and exhaled, the thick smoke snatched out the car window and dispersed into the West Virginia wilds.

Sitting in the backseat, Marshall Hemmsfield rested his head on the taut shoulders of star athlete Monica Kane. Marshall pursed his lips and blew Monica's black hair off his brow.

"You look comfortable." Monica observed, tussling Marshall's brown curls.

"I'm actually wracked by barely concealed anxiety." Marshall admitted, his lids closing lazily.

"Yeah?"

"I can't believe you strongarmed me into coming to this extreme weekend malarkey."

Monica grabbed a handful of Marshall's hair and pulled his face to hers.

"I recall it being anticlimactically simple once I mentioned that Juan was coordinating the event."

She had him there.

Marshall had been harboring a borderline infatuation for the twenty-two-year-old Puerto Rican transplant ever since they made small talk at freshman orientation two years ago. Monica had convinced him that the Bluefield State University's Adventure Group weekend at the Greenbrier Mountains provided good material for a student affairs article Marshall had to write for the school paper.

Shaking free from Monica's grip, Marshall sat up in the leather seat and stared at the back of Juan's head. "All that's going to happen is you are all going to be defying death all over the backcountry while I scribble in my notebook and take snapshots. I'm going to look impotent by comparison."

"Or you could use the opportunity to pick Juan's brain by interviewing him. You know, show interest in his interests. Men love to hear themselves talk."

"Woman, you are conniving."

"I'm a winner, Marshall. You could be too if you stop being such a dead fuck."

"You guys are making it hard to study with all your innuendos and double entendres." Jenny Chan said from the middle of the van, sitting with her back against the window and legs crossed underneath her. A thick advanced mathematics text was open on her lap, along with a notepad and pen. Damian Ramsey, to her right, leaned in close to her.

"You shouldn't be studying anyway. It's _Saturday_." Damian flashed Jenny a brilliant smile, crisp white against his dark skin.

"I have a test, Ramsey."

"You always have a test, Chan." he countered.

"The road to success is littered with exams and term papers, Confucius say." Jenny templed her hands and bowed her head.

"You work too hard, Jenny." Kevin said in a tight voice. After releasing a nimbus of fragrant smoke from his lips, he continued. "You need to cut back. Smoke a bowl, admire the forty fucking miles of trees and put your abacus away."

"How about I look at the trees while you smoke them?" Jenny slapped her textbook shut and shoved it into her napsack.

"I will get you to chill, Jennifer Chan. That is a _promise_."

"Kevin, how long is it to Fairlake? I've had to piss since mile marker seventeen." Juan interjected. Kevin tapped at his mounted GPS and spared it a quick glance before returning his green eyes to the road. "We're twenty minutes out. Want me to pull over?"

"Nah, I'll hold it. Besides, we have an hour before we have to meet our wilderness guide."

"Just don't go getting a bladder infection on me, man. Jenny, pass this to Marshall for me." Kevin blindly handed a half-roasted bowl behind him. Jenny pinched her small nose and grabbed the glass piece. Marshall took it from her and took his hit. Monica looked at him.

"Make sure you're still lucid enough to write the article."

"Weed makes me write better."

"You're such a wreck."

"I know. I'm hapless." Marshall's shoulders slumped. He morosely took another pull from the phallus-shaped bowl.

Fairlake was an idealistic West Virginia settlement, all ma & pa stores and monuments to a past of hardship and survival. The Bluefield State Adventure Group took the main road into the center of town. They passed by the Fairlake Sheriff Station, the newest looking building on the block. Just outside, two women were arguing animatedly. The tall brunette was wearing the brown and tan uniform of an officer, her arms crossed and face resolute. There was an attractive young blond woman in cutoff shorts and a tanktop. A large napsack was at her booted feet.

"I think that's her," Juan said as Kevin slowed the van to a crawl.

"Who, Daisy Duke?" Kevin asked, hoping the smell of pot had dissipated by now. "I expected someone with a gut and a beard."

"Give her time. She does live in hicksville." Damian added under his breath. Juan rolled down his window and stuck his head out of the passenger side window.

"Excuse me-" Juan tried, but the blond yelled over him.

"You can't stop me, Dylan. I'm taking them into the backcountry."

"I can't stop you? I think you forgot which sister carries handcuffs and pepperspray," the policewoman countered.

"Excuse me-" Juan tried again, louder. Both women whirled on him and Juan hesitated, suddenly finding himself on the receiving end of their ire.

"What can I help you with, sir?" The brunette, Dylan, asked with forced congeniality.

"We're from Bluefield U. We're supposed to meet up with someone named Ami Ray." Juan looked at the blond expectantly.

"You found her," the blond girl said without fanfare. "If you take the road down to the end, you'll find a motel to settle up in. I'll meet you there."

"Are you the group headed for the Sharps?" Sheriff Dylan Ray asked, peering into the van. Jenny, Damian, Monica and Marshall waved awkwardly.

"We are." Juan answered.

"I'm inclined to warn you folks that people have gone missing up in Greenbrier." Ami rolled her eyes as her older sister spoke.

"We'll be _fine_,"

"Like Dad was fine?"

"I'm_ going_. Either arrest me or shut the hell up."

Ami ignored the hard stare of her sibling and grabbed her backpack from off the ground. She took off down the street, in the direction she had indicated the motel was in. Fuming, the sheriff watched her go from the door of the police station.

"You have a good day now, y'hear?" Kevin saluted as he moved the van to catch up with Ami. Dylan said nothing as they drove off.


End file.
